7 Wafd Party members expelled amid internal conflict

CAIRO: The Wafd Party’s high board decided Friday to expel seven senior members in the wake of an internal conflict, board member Bahgat al-Hussamy told Youm 7.

In their meeting at the party’s headquarters Friday, the high board members voted in landslide to expel the members who formed a group “Wafd Party Reform Current” opposing the party’s current chairman Al Sayed Al-Badawi.

Veteran member Fouad Badrwi and Essam Shiha are among those who were expelled.

During the past few weeks, the liberal party witnessed an internal conflict among Al-Badawi and the reform current members who, earlier this month, called for a vote of no-confidence for Al-Badawi over what they claimed he tried to get rid of them by reducing the number of board members through changing the bylaws.

In an attempt to resolve the issue, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi met with the conflicting parties who agreed upon Sisi’s suggestion to appoint some of them within the board; a suggestion based on the chairman’s eligibility to appoint ten members in the party’s board of members.

However, Wafd Party’s board member, Tarek Sebaq said last week Badrawi and other members, who were present during the Sisi’s meeting, have rejected the appointment decision which they previously agreed upon.

The party faced a similar confrontation in 2008 when its then chairman Noaman Gomaa closed the party’s daily paper after some members used its premises to hold a sit-in pressuring him to step down.

The Wafd Party is Egypt’s oldest liberal party. Established in 1919, it was the leading party before the 1952 Revolution, which abolished the Egyptian monarchy.